The California Coven Project

by Bob Stickgold

  In anger, she threw the magazine down again and folded her hands tightly in her lap. For a moment, a few people looked up, surprised by the sudden noise, but then they politely turned away.

  Damn them, she thought. Damn this whole, ugly, emotionless place. I can’t believe that I’m just sitting here, looked in my own little head, with a cure for cancer, for God’s sake, a cure for cancer! Suddenly, she bounded to her feet, hurried downstairs to the pay phone, and dialed the collect-code for the clinic.

  “Lisa, it’s Maggie. Is Beckie there? I need to talk to her.”

  “Hold the line; I’ll buzz her.”

  She heard a hum and then, after about fifteen seconds, a click. “Hi Maggie? What’s up?”

  “Oh, Beckie, thank God you’re there. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t.”

  “Is something the matter?”

  Maggie let out a nervous laugh. “No, something’s great, and I need a place to blow off some steam. I think Ann’s going to be better.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I think Ann’s going to be better. I think her cancer’s gone. I’m up at Stanford. Remember, I said we were coming here for tests? Well, she’s getting total body scans, and so far it looks like it’s all gone.”

  “The cancer?”

  “Yes! The cancer! Krueger’s finished the scans of the abdominal cavity, and at least a half-dozen tumors, including the main ones, have disappeared. And Beckie, I cured her!”

  “What?” Beckie shouted. “You cured her?”

  Maggie began laughing uncontrollably. “Yes,” she finally choked out, “I cured her. And Beckie, I haven’t talked to anyone about it, and Krueger’s pressuring me for information, and I just needed to tell someone who I could feel good with. Beckie, look, I’m a little crazy right now. But please, can you come over at eight tonight? I’ll give Ann some sedatives, because she’ll need them for sure tonight, and then we can sneak off somewhere to talk.”

  “Why sure. Should I come for dinner? We could talk then, too?”

  Maggie hesitated. “No. I haven’t told Carol anything about this, yet, and I want to tell her when we’re alone. So let’s wait until eight.” She glanced at her watch. “Look, I have to get back upstairs, because Ann should be coming out soon. See you at eight?”

  “Guaranteed a hundred percent.”

  Hanging up the phone, Maggie hurried back to the waiting room. When she got back upstairs, Ann was already out, sitting up with the back of the bed cranked up, an orderly next to her.

  “Oh, Mom, I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you came out.”

  “We’ve just been out a couple of minutes,” the orderly offered.

  “Well, thank you for staying with her until I got back,” Maggie said. “I can take her from here.” As the orderly left, she turned to Ann. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Scared,” she admitted, “Afraid that it’ll all turn out to have been a mistake. Oh, Margaret, I just want to sit down and weep!”

  Maggie gave her a big hug. “Go right ahead, Mom There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  But Ann pulled away. “No. I have to wait for the results of these scans before I can do anything. How long should it be?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I really don’t know. Dr. Krueger is really upset about all this, and I wouldn’t tell him about your treatment. So he might want to study them in detail before saying anything.”

  Ann frowned. “Do you have my glasses?”

  “They’re in my bag.”

  “Well, give me them, and one of those stupid magazines, and then let’s just wait for the doctor.”

  Twenty minutes passed before Krueger appeared. “Ann,” he began, “I can find no evidence of any cancer in your body from these scans. I’ll want to look them over much more carefully, and have other doctors here look at them, too.

  “I’m tempted to say that you are out of danger, but I won’t say that because I don’t know why the cancer has gone.” He glanced at Maggie, then turned back to Ann. “I do know that treatment developed by your daughter seems to have caused the regression of the cancer. That’s such an unexpected event. that I do not know whether to expect its return in a month, or to expect never to see it again. But for now I can find no evidence of cancer in your body. At a later date I’ll want to take biopsies to see how things look, but until then, go home, rest, and regain your strength. In a couple of weeks, I’d Like someone down in the Santa Cruz area to give you a good going over.” He turned to Maggie. “I’d really like to talk to you some before you leave.”

  “I’m sorry. Bill. I’d really like to. But I can’t yet, and I’m afraid you’ll have to respect my feelings.”

  Frowning, he shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, I guess I don’t have much say in it. But do remember the others?”

  “I will. I’m quite sure of that.” She turned to Ann “Okay, Mom, let’s get you dressed and out of here.”

  A half-hour later they were heading for home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “MOM?” Carol stuck her head quietly into Ann’s room and whispered to Maggie. “Beckie Mcphee’s here.”

  “Shhh.” Maggie rose from her chair and tiptoed out the door, then closed it. “Gramma just fell asleep, so we should be quiet for a while.” They walked to the kitchen. Before Beckie could say anything, Maggie greeted her. “Hi, Beckie, how are you?”

  Beckie stalled in the middle of a joyous greeting. “Pretty good, and you?” she asked, tentatively.

  Maggie smiled. “Great, all of Ann’s tests were as we hoped they would be. But I do want to hear about the meeting last night.” She turned to Carol. “We should be back around twelve. Well have a beeper with us, so if you need to reach me, just call the clinic.”

  “Is it okay if I have Melanie over?” Carol asked.

  “Sure, just don’t get so loud that you wake Ann.” Kissing Carol good-bye, she left with Beckie. They walked the two short blocks to the Catalyst, a coffeehouse frequented mostly by students from the Santa Cruz branch of the University of California. Located in what was once a luxurious oceanside hotel, the decor was outrageously ornate, with a fountain in the center of one room. Somehow, it fit reasonably well with the dart board, and the small crowded tables where people were playing chess or bridge or talking quietly. They finally found a table off in a corner.

  “So,” Beckie said excitedly, “tell me about Ann.”

  Maggie smiled. “Don’t you want to talk about what happened at the meeting last night?”

  “Maggie! Of course I want to talk to you about last night, but first I have to know everything about Ann. How is she?”

  Maggie sat forward in her chair, excited beyond control. “Beckie, I think she’s cured, and so does Krueger. He ran a complete series of computer-averaged scans, and couldn’t find a single tumor. He was totally freaked out, because last week I went in and pressured him into doing them, even though he was sure that there wasn’t a chance of any significant improvement. Krueger concluded that I had tried something on her. I think he’s scared that I used Lactrile or Curenin. But he really believes that whatever I did, it worked a cure. He wants in on it.”

  “But he said that he thinks the cancer is gone?” Beckie demanded.

  Maggie nodded. “He didn’t take any biopsies but he’s convinced she’s cured. And if she isn’t, it’s been reduced so far that she’s not in anywhere near as much danger as before. So maybe she’ll need another treatment every year or two. It doesn’t matter. For all practical purposes, she’s cured!” She leaned back in her chair triumphantly. Her cheeks were a bright red from the excitement.

  Beckie was speechless a rare condition for her. For a moment she just stared at Maggie with her mouth half open. Finally, she asked, “But Maggie, what did you do? I mean, what kind of medicine did you give her?”

  Maggie smiled proudly. “First, you have to swear to absolute secrecy, and I really mean absolute, because this is just too big a thing to let get out.”r />
  She nodded.

  “No, Beckie, I want you to think about it, and then say it.”

  Beckie paused. “Okay,” she said finally. “I solemnly agree not to divulge anything that you say after this point in our conversation to anyone, without your clear permission.”

  Maggie solemnly nodded her head in acceptance, but then her face broke into a silly grin. “It was a brew of frog and sweet oil, egg yolk, burnt allo—”

  “Maggie! Not that old cure you found at Stanford? I thought you tried it, and it didn’t work.”

  Maggie smiled. “I only tried half of it before. I only tried the medicine.”

  Beckie looked confused. “I don’t understand—was there more in that book than that recipe? What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you know, the incantations, charms, magic drawings on her bedroom door . . .”

  “Stop it! Why won’t you be serious with me?”

  “Because I’m so happy! Beckie, don’t you understand? I’ve found a cure for cancer!” She almost bounced up in her chair as she said it.

  Beckie did bounce to her feet. Leaping around the table, she pulled Maggie up, gave her a big hug, and whirled her around.

  Maggie grabbed Beckie’s chair and pulled it around the table so that it was right next to hers, and then pushed her into it.

  “You know,” she said, “I haven’t proved that it worked, or anything yet, but if it was the medicine that cured Mom, we’ve done what medical science couldn’t do. I just can’t comprehend the magnitude of the event. It’s just too much! All I believe so far is that Mom really is better. And even that’s hard to believe.”

  “Oh, Maggie!” Beckie said, her voice soft but intense. “I’m so happy for you, and proud of you, too!”

  “But Beckie, I never would have figured it out without you. I would have given up alter the first try. We did it together!”

  Surprised, Beckie pulled away a bit, and looked at her. “Maggie,” she pleaded, “what do you mean? What did you figure out?”

  Her eyes danced with delight as she repeated, “Incantations, charms, magic drawings on the door! Beckie, we’re all so blinded by pharmaceutical-house science that we forget the source of magic’s true strength. Why do you think witch doctors, midwives, and primitive doctors all over the world used magical trappings?”

  “Well.” Beckie began uncertainly, “probably to give some sort of authority, power, to their treatment—”

  “No!” Maggie shouted. Leaning forward, her face only inches from Beckie’s, she whispered, “Because they worked!” Throwing her head up, almost defiantly, she leaned back in her chair. “You taught me that,” she announced.

  Beckie responded slowly, unsurely. “You’re saying that magic works?”

  “Nope. Try again.”

  “But you’re saying that the incantation and charms, and all that did work, in curing diseases?”

  “Closer,” Maggie replied. “Those things together with—”

  “With the medicine!” Beckie said.

  “Right.” Maggie smiled. “The medicine works with them, but not without them. I know that, because I tried it both ways.”

  “But did you actually use those things on Ann?—incantations, charms, drawing on her bedroom door?”

  “And what did you have to do with it?” Maggie suggested.

  “Yes, and what did I have to do with it?”

  Maggie laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry, Beckie. Will you let me do it this way? Making you guess? I really want to, because I want you to see it the way I did, as a flash.”

  Beckie laughed, too. “Maggie, you’re wonderful! Of course you can, if you want.”

  “Okay. Look, when you teach someone how to do natural childbirth, what do you teach them?”

  Beckie accepted her role. “To relax, to understand what is happening in their bodies, and what’s going to be happening.”

  “And what sort of specific procedures do you teach them?”

  “Relaxation breathing,” Beckie replied. “Breathing patterns that make it possible for the woman to relax her muscles, and deal with the pain of the contractions.”

  “And does that breathing pattern cause the body to relax?”

  “No, not really, it just makes it easier for the woman to relax.”

  “And does that stop the pain?”

  “No. It breaks the pain-fear-tension cycle, so that the pain doesn’t build up any stronger.”

  “So if all you did was teach them the breathing exercises?”

  “It probably wouldn’t work.”

  Maggie paused a moment, then leaned forward, “Why not?”

  Beckie considered the question. “Because—because the woman has to have enough strength and self-confidence in addition to block the buildup of fear.”

  Maggie smiled. “And what is the scientific, biochemical, physiological basis for the pain-fear-tension cycle?”

  Beckie thought a minute. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone really knows. It has to do with adrenaline release, and all that, in part, but really, we don’t know.”

  “So, if the basis for it isn’t scientific—”

  A huge smile broke out on Beckie’s face. “Then it’s magic!”

  All the fantastic, electrical excitement in Maggie’s face vanished, replaced with an impossibly contradictory calmness. She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and said, “I taught Ann to trust the medicine, and to trust the ability of her body to work with that medicine to cure the cancer. I gave her strength and self-confidence. You can call it magic if you want.”

  Beckie was astonished by the near-radiance of Maggie’s face. She seemed almost to glow with delight and pride. She started to say something when Maggie stopped her.

  “And Beckie, it was you who taught me that progress could be sought not only from new and better instrumentation, medication, and technology, but that it could also be sought from within the patient.

  “You know, up until right now, I hadn’t been sure why I refused to tell Krueger about what I did. I knew vaguely that it had to do with a fear that he wouldn’t believe me; now I do understand it. My cure, my potion and charms, are totally at odds with the whole approach of modern medicine. They aren’t scientific.” She paused “And now, you do have to tell me about what happened at the meeting last night, because, you see, if we can’t convince the medical profession of the validity of how we want to carry out our midwifery we won’t be able to convince them of the validity of my cancer cure, either.”

  * * *

  For several hours, Beckie replayed the first meeting of what had conic to be called the Natural Midwives Association. They then discussed strategy, edited the draft of a statement that Beckie had written that morning and time and time again came back to the miracle of Ann’s cure. By midnight, they were exhausted.

  “So we have two battles ahead of us,” Beckie summarized. “How to get the Natural Midwives Association recognized, and how to get Maggie’s Magic Cancer Cure recognized.”

  Maggie smiled. “Maggie’s Magic Cancer Cure,” she repeated. “M2C2. Sounds like a robot I used to know.” Beckie groaned. “But really, it’s not two fights, it’s just one—getting the medical establishment to accept the fact that they don’t have a monopoly on approaches to taking care of people.”

  “Well,” Beckie argued, “they may have the same eventual goal in mind, but tactically, they’re really different fights, and I suspect that there won’t be much interaction between the two.”

  Maggie nodded in frustrated agreement. “But isn’t there some way that we could tie them together?” she asked.

  Beckie shrugged. “I don’t see how.”

  “Well, look,” Maggie suggested, “we really haven’t talked at all about dealing with our cancer cure. I mean, I don’t even know how we’re going to be able to convince anyone that we really have a cure.”

  “Why not?” Beckie asked. “You seem to have Krueger convinced. And you did cure your morn. So where’s the problem?”

&nbs
p; Maggie smiled. “The problem is three problems, really. Problem number one: no one’s going to buy a three-hundred-year-old cure for cancer that uses frogs and spices; number two: we haven’t any evidence that I actually cured Mom, as opposed to her just spontaneously recovering from cancer after I gave her the so-called cure. I would like more evidence before I try to convince the medical profession. Number three: if I give them my cure, they’ll go and test it on rats, mice, and people stashed away in hospital death wards, and when they do that, it won’t work. That’s the way I tried it with Mom the first time, and it didn’t do anything as far as I could tell. It’ll take some pretty strong evidence before they’re willing to test the medicine the way it has to be done. In fact, maybe I shouldn’t even call it a medicine. Maybe potion is more appropriate, because . . .” She stopped, confused by her inability to say what she was thinking. “I guess I’m more tired than! Thought.”

  But now Beckie was alert again. “But are you saying that you want to test the potion on more people before you tell anyone about it?”

  Maggie nodded.

  Beckie continued excitedly, “Then maybe there is a way we can tie the two together—what say that we let a few of the women from the N.M.A. in on your secret. Maybe a half-dozen or so of us could do it.”

  “The point being?” Maggie asked.

  “The point being that I think the A.M.A’s anti-N.M.A. campaign is going to be slow in building. If we can get enough evidence for the cancer cure before the crunch comes, then we could have the N.M.A. announce your discovery—”

  “Wait a minute,” Maggie interrupted. “You gave me your solemn promise that you wouldn’t tell anyone about this. That includes other midwives, too.”

  “Well, I’m not going to go and tell them unless you’re in agreement, Maggie.”

  “No of course not,” she admitted. “I don’t know where that came from. I guess I just don’t have enough confidence myself, and I’d hate to involve anyone else if it turns out to be a bust.”

  Beckie shrugged. “It wouldn’t be such a terrible thing if a few more people spent some time on it and it turned out not to work,” she suggested.